ITALY. LETTER XXIII. 309 



of Mr. Donati extol to this day his candour 

 and lively parts. But he had many ungenerous 

 detracting enemies, as appears by rumours in- 

 tended to ftain his memory ; and importing, 

 that he is ftill living in Perfia under a foreign 

 drefs, after having appropriated to himfelf a large 

 fum of money, defigned for his literary expedition. 

 This falfe and injurious charge is the more cruel, 

 as it blackens the name of a deferving man, 

 who, being a martyr to Natural Hiftory, mould 

 rather have been honoured by a ftatue in a hallowed 

 grove of cyprefs. If its falfhood did not appear 

 in many other circumftances, it would by the pri- 

 vate letters ; which he muft be fuppofed Co have 

 meant for his own ufe; and would not have 

 fent them in thefe chefts had he not been flat- 

 tered with the unaccomplished hope of returning, 

 to unpack them himfelf. But fp happy a fate 

 was not the doom of this Son of Nature, whom 

 fhe is ftill mourning. Donati died in Perfia, not 

 by poifon, as fpread by another falfe rumour, but 

 by the plague. The friends of fcience lament 

 his death the more, as not a fingle paper of his 

 writings and literary collections has been delivered. 

 All the expences and good intentions of a wife 

 Monarch, for the improvement of Natural Hif- 

 tory, were loft at once j and, by the fame ftroke, 

 yanimed the hopes of many who have been juftly 

 X 3 afflidecl 



